PM Citu: We need to speed vaccination campaign, not look for culprits

Prime Minister Florin Citu said on Thursday that the immunization campaign must be sped up and payments will be made for staff at vaccination centers, adding that he will maintain the programs approved by Save Romania Union - Party of Liberty, Unity and Solidarity (USR PLUS), such as the lottery or other methods to encourage vaccination. "We need to be prepared to increase the number of beds at ICU, to return slowly, gradually, to what we had in winter. And to speed up the vaccination campaign. To make sure that the vaccination centers have functional flows and will remain so in the future. Now that we have had the budget revision approved, we need to make sure - and we have talked to the Ministry of Health - that payments will be made to the staff at the vaccination centers as soon as possible, because we need everyone in this period," Citu said at the end of the Government meeting. Referring to the USR PLUS reproaches that the prime minister would be responsible for the "failure" of the vaccination campaign, because he assumed the role of coordinator, Citu pointed out that we should not look for culprits, but for solutions. "I said from the first moment that I would like everyone to get involved in the vaccination campaign. I find it hilarious to be in a government and say that this vaccination campaign, because it is coordinated by the prime minister, belongs to the prime minister. No, it is our vaccination campaign, of all of us and we should all be in. What I said is that the vaccination campaign will be difficult in the next period, when a party like USR legitimizes an anti-vaccination party and brings it to the stage of politics in Romania and legitimizes it. It will be very difficult to convince the Romanians that the message of the anti-vaccinists is not a dangerous one when they stand next to those who until yesterday were in the act of governing," he affirmed. The prime minister added that the programs agreed with USR PLUS to encourage vaccination will be continued, as they are important. "We have all the vaccine doses, we have the flows ready, so that everyone, the staff can be paid on time. We will use all the methods. The programs that we have already agreed with our former colleagues from USR will go on, also the one with the lottery, and the one with the incentive systems. I agreed to them, we will not stop them, because they are all important," said Florin Citu. AGERPRES (RO - author: Irinela Visan, editor: Catalin Alexandru; EN - author: Bogdan Gabaroi, editor: Adina Panaitescu)